Letters to the Editor: East Rockaway, Lynbrook

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Donations are tax-deductible

To the Editor: As the Herald has written stories about recently, the East Rockaway schools and the East Rockaway Public Library have sustained damage from Hurricane Sandy — but good news! All cash donations to either the school district or library, made to offset the cost of repairs and replacement of learning materials, is fully deductible to the limits set by the Internal Revenue Service. Many new citizens in our country were not allowed to support public education and public libraries in their land of birth, so they have avoided supporting these entities with cash donations to the East Rockaway schools and other school systems and libraries. Giving to public schools was approved in the early 1970s when the North Haven Public Schools in Connecticut sought and obtained a letter of approval for public cash donations to the schools from the IRS. As director of curriculum and instruction at North Haven, I was the recipient of that letter. What followed was publication of the correspondence in the New Haven Register, and since then, foreign-born American citizens began making major donations to the school system. Perhaps new East Rockaway citizens will consider coming to aid of their and other childrens’ schools and library!

Sid Tanenbaum, who lived in Woodmere and owned a metal-stamping shop in Far Rockaway, where he was known more for his charitable ways than his two-handed set shot, has been honored for the past 30 years with a basketball tournament that raises scholarship money for students in the Five Towns.